


Little Star

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23411407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: A birthday, remembered.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 28





	Little Star

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL DUNCAN! TIME TO BE SAD

You will play this memory behind your eyelids so many times that it stops being real.

At the time you will take your mornings for granted; you will not be grateful for the striped bedspread, your favorite orange stuffed fox, the soft and forgiving wooden floors. You will not ask questions. You will wake up on the morning of your seventh birthday and look immediately around the room for presents – there won’t be any, not yet, but each time you imagine this day there is always a moment where you hope they will be there. You spring out of bed; the floor is not cold against your bare feet, and you are not in a hurry, and you have nowhere to be. It’s a Sunday. You are, at the moment, six years old.

Your closet: overalls, dresses, skirts and pinafores. You understand that shopping for new clothes is a special occasion – you know that whatever you pick will be recorded by your mother, considered by your father. Your preferences are always noted. (No one ever makes you wear scrubs, and you don’t question that either; you are still six years old, you are not seven yet, you still know with great certainty that it is the right of a child to wear real clothes.) (Later—)

(No. No. No. No. No. No. No.)

Your closet: overalls, dresses, skirts and pinafores. Your favorite dress is navy blue. (Was it green?) (Wasn’t it green, wasn’t there a photograph—) Your favorite dress is dark green. It has a Peter Pan collar. You pull that one off of its hanger (a wood hanger?) (what color was the hanger?) (don’t ask questions, don’t ask questions, don’t ask questions) and put it on and today is your birthday, your very last birthday, only you don’t know that it’s your last birthday yet. You are hoping your parents will buy you a horse of your own. (They won’t.) Failing that, a dollhouse. (You will find the file later: how you played with the dollhouse, what that meant about your developing brain, don’t think about it.) (Don’t think about it.)

You put on the dress. (Don’t think about it.) You zip it up the back. (Don’t think about it.) Your father is so proud of you for getting dressed all by yourself. (Oh god.) You pull on a pair of shoes with buckles and go down the staircase – that staircase – that familiar and beloved wooden staircase, you dream about that staircase, the creak of your father’s feet on the stairs as he comes up to read a story to you and the unforgivable unforgettable smell of smoke as the staircase burns in your dreams—

— _don’t think about it_ —

—you are six years old. Down the staircase. Six years old you are going down the staircase today is your birthday, don’t ruin the memory, today you are going to turn seven years old. Today. Not yet. Later today.

The hallway – of course, the hallway. You’ve drawn this house out so many times that you _know_ , here, this is where the hallway was. Its framed pictures of landscapes on the walls. (How had you not realized?) The mirror above the side table where your mother paused to put on her lipstick before she went out – sometimes with your father, sometimes without. This is where the hallway is. This is its creaking board. Did you step on the creaking board, don’t think about it! The walls are a soothing green. Here is the kitchen. Your father is cooking pancakes, which are your favorite and it doesn’t matter if you’ve forgotten how they taste. They’re your favorite, they have always been your favorite. He flips over a pancake as you skip in. He turns and looks at you. No matter what you forget – and there are many things that you have forgotten, no matter how much you are willing to lie to yourself – you cannot forget the way he looked at you, here, the way he looked at you here with the love in his eyes. Don’t forget it. Do not forget it, do not lose it. The light reflecting off of the edge of his glasses. The sound of classical music on the speakers. The track lost to a child’s simple memory. The track lost. The name unremembered. Gone, the sound of classical music on the speakers.

He says your name.

He smiles when he says your name.

You can’t forget that someone smiled, once, when they said your name.

You take all this for granted. (Don’t hate yourself for it.) You throw yourself at your father’s legs and hold him: the rough fabric of corduroy pants, the faint smell of your father that you can picture but cannot recall. His enormous hand on your small shoulder. He had a nickname for you. Don’t forget it. The sizzling of pancakes on the griddle. Blueberry pancakes.

Your mother is at the kitchen table. Her hair is loose around her shoulders. She loved you. (Wait.) She loves you. Don’t forget how much she loves you, the way she looks up when you enter the room. The strange sideways grimace of her smile – she always took so long to wake up in the mornings – she needed a cup of tea from your father, a brisk pat of his hand on her shoulder. She’s reading the newspaper. The newspaper bores you. You want to read the comics, only your mother doesn’t want you to read them. You will never know what this newspaper says because you were too stupid to ever try and learn.

She says your name too. Also she says “good morning.” Also she loves you. “Good morning, Rachel,” she says that, she says that and means it and loves you and wants you to have a good morning. Both of them wanted you to have good mornings; when they greeted you like that they meant it, more than anyone else has ever meant it.

Please don’t forget all the love they had for you.

Please don’t forget it, Rachel. It’s all you have left.

Your seat at the table. The encyclopedia (blue covers, cracked spine) placed on the seat so you can reach your fork and knife – your big girl seat, back when you were excited to be big, back when you thought you could keep growing and growing forever and nothing would ever stop you. Your father’s crinkled up eyes as he slides the plate of pancakes towards you, a pile of whipped cream on top, seven candles. The unchipped white china of your household plates; your favorite yellow mug, already brimming with milk. You are such a fucking idiot for not appreciating this when you had it. It was wasted on you. You were too busy to pay attention to it – you were looking out the bay windows, you were waiting for the horse. The horse was not coming. There was no horse. You ignored their love for you. Why didn’t you pay closer attention?

When they sing “Happy Birthday” to you, their voices harmonize. It’s a bumpy rendition; it’s flawed, imperfect. Better for that. It’s so much better than when you sing it on your own.

Blow out the candles, now.

Look: your mother has put down her book for you. She is singing for you. Your father’s eyes are welling up with tears. They loved you so much. You are never allowed to forget that someone _did_ love you, that someone _has_ loved you, that you have been loved. If you forget that – that you have been loved – you are lost. You will drown in the black tide of your life and you will not ever find the surface again.

But none of that is real. What’s real is the taste of whipped cream and banana pancakes and your father saying your name and your mother wiping a smudge of whipped cream off of your chin and later than this there will be presents (don’t remember what they are, don’t spoil it) and the whole day stretches out before you just as your life stretches out before you, infinite, blessed. Every birthday will be like this; each of them will be packed all the way to the top with love, with the way your parents love you.

It hurts, doesn’t it?

Doesn’t it hurt?

Hurt yourself with it. The yellow light in the kitchen, the low sounds of jazz music on the speakers. Cut yourself right open with it. All of that fucking love. Remember it – that encyclopedia, those pancakes, that dress, those shoes, that music, your mother’s book, your father’s aftershave, your kitchen walls, your kitchen floor, the creaking floorboard and the stuffed grey fox. Remember: you asked your parents if they’d bought you a horse. Remember this, too: they said no.

**Author's Note:**

> Little genius, little star  
> You're everything they say you are  
> Is it lovely in the dark?  
> Or do you dim as you go on?
> 
> You, winters in the basement  
> Trying not to face it  
> Wonder where your kingdom went  
> And when they look at you  
> Come on little genius, do it like you used to to  
> Keep workin', keep watchin'  
> They'll listen, no stoppin'  
> \--"Little Star," San Fermin
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
